The Heart - Stories

February 06, 2007

The Kroc Gift every Year?What would it be like for Public Radio stations and for producers if the system received $240 million a year directly from listeners? How would you feel if this began in 2008? How would you feel if you could look further into the future and see a multiple of this number?

"There goes Rob again - whistling in the wind". "Just more of Rob's words."

But hang on a second - what if this was an entirely feasible objective? What if it was not hard to do technically or financially? What if there was a model to draw on? What if the only hard thing about the idea was the decision to act or not?

So what has got me going like this?

About 2 weeks ago I bumped into Stephen Hill for the first time. I had missed him during the New Realities process. We had been commenting on each other's blogs and had decided to speak in person. I was talking to him on the phone in the hallway of a nursing home where my mother lay gravely ill. I was apologizing that I could not give him my full attention.

In a distracted way, I had been going through a worthy list of things that I thought that Public Radio could do to make progress. I believed that a focused but multi prong strategy would be needed. He had been polite as I rambled on but I sensed that he wanted to tell me something important. I felt pulled back into my mother's room and excused myself. "Can we talk soon when I am less distracted ?" I asked.

So he closed quickly. He reminded me that true strategy looked for the decisive point that would unlock everything.

He told me that there was one such act for Public radio. The one act that would engage every part of the system. The one act that would establish value as the core of all relationships. The one act that would pull all the listeners into true community.

That one act was to build a direct subscription relationship with its supporters.

"Oh we know all about that" you might say. Maybe.....

Yes we have debated this as one of many ideas but we have not tried to find the one act. Nor I bet have many of us really looked at a fractal model that exists today of how this could be built, operated and sustained. We have played with the idea but we have not examined its reality.

Let's join Stephen and find out how he went to this place and see how his own struggles mirror yours. Let's find out what he did and why. Let's find out if it is working and then wonder if it could work for the larger system.

While most of my energy at the time was focused on my mother - who was so ill I thought she would not last the week (She is much better now thanks) Stephen's remarks hit me like a thunderbolt.

In my mind, he had hit the bullseye. If Public radio could pull this off - everything would change. All of public radio could participate and could benefit. Above all, the key listener relationship with those who make content and those that distribute it would shift to a relationship based on direct value. The relationship between supporters would also then open up as well.

Excited I asked Stephen if I could speak with him when I was less pulled by my own problems.

Yesterday we talked at length about his experience in building such a direct and value-based subscription service.

I asked him how he had reached the point where he decided to set up a direct subscription service.

"My motivation was financial pressure. I had to find a way to add value to my core business. I found it in the archive and I found it by listening to my listeners who were begging me to make the archive available.

My core issue is that I had to find a way of amplifying the value of our day to day business. I have always lived close to the financial bone as an independent producer. At the peak of the show's popularity, with hundreds of stations signed up, we only had enough revenue to pay a staffer and the connect fees. To pay myself, I had to find a supporting business. For many years I paid myself by operating a record business. But, by 2000, it was clear that, in the digital age, a conventional record business was not going to pay the bills anymore. If we were going to survive, I had to find another revenue stream that I could relay on. With a bit of luck, I might find a revenue stream that might actually be better than subsistence."

So what did you find?

"I stepped back and tried my best to see where I really was. I had built a specific approach to music that was enthusiastically shared by listeners. Not all listeners. Not even a lot of them but enough to make a direct link to them interesting. I was getting a growing wave of emails asking for access to the archive. Many had tape recorded items from air but after a decade the tape was tired and who plays tape anymore anyway. They were telling me that they wanted to find the best of what we had."

So how did you go from this idea and this observation into creating a new reality for yourself?

"We started small and we never tried to do ourselves what others could do better. We used outside experts that have an existing trustworthy and reliable system to handle the payments (They are the same guys who handle the porn industry - lots of small regular payments.) We have moved on but my point is - we could not afford to build key parts of our system on our own.

It took a year and we spent $30,000 on digitizing our archive. We did not digitize it all indiscriminately. We looked for a quality that we call 'Archive Value'. Items with Archive Value are items that beg to be played repeatedly. This idea of Archive Value - items that beg to be repeated - is now an idea that I see on reflection as being key to moving ahead without over investing in areas that will not deliver a return. We were so small that we could not afford to be wasteful.

We started Hearts of Space with only 100 items. 100 items does not sound like a lot. But when did you last hear 100 songs? This again was a helpful discovery. We did not need to start with a big inventory - just a good one. We now have 800 items in inventory. We added these at a rate of about 30 at a time. So this gave us a chance to re-market every time we had a release. We learned that you do not have to start with a lot in the archive but that what you start with must have this Value. We learned that it is better to start small and then add as this gives you the opportunity to sell again and to reach new subscribers."

Just like Charles Dickens?

"Yes - he was the master of direct serialization."

He also made a ton of money and built his audience like few others over time.

"Exactly. We were making money at the outset as well. We opened with 800 subscribers. We now have about 4,000. That is 4,000 people who pay us a small amount of money every month in a reliable way that we can now feel confident can be predicted."

That does not sound like a lot of people when you think of listening to a station or who are fans of a program.

"No but 100% of the 4,000 pay!"

I see and only 10% of listeners pay

"My point"

Does not this change the relationship between you and the listener?

"Of course. With the traditional model, the premise is scarcity. 'If you don't help us you will not be able to hear X' That is simply not true any more. Soon you will be able to hear X anywhere and any time - Look at This American Life."

It also is a poor values call - it's all about guilt. I am sure that I am not the only one who hates pledge week - I feel bad.

"Yes. With subscription everyone feels good. It is based on value being given for value received. It also creates community among the subscribers who want to share their enthusiasm about what is important to them."

So a direct subscription model based on Archive Value is not confined only to the subscriber and the offerer?

"No - the subscribers need to connect to each other. By starting with Archive Value, we also add a value to the existing world and we do not take away from it but add to it. By starting with Archive, we offer something new that people seem to have no problem with paying for."

Yes - I bought the BBC's Bleak house last week on DVD. In effect I bought an archive that I could have seen for Free on PBS. I also wanted to talk a lot to others about my experience. So I went online to Amazon to see what others had thought about this particular production. I would have preferred to be in a Dickens community though.

"You've got it Rob. This does not cannibalize the existing system - it adds value to it."

So Stephen what do you see how the money might work for all of public radio?

"Well there are about 30 million listeners. Let's be very conservative. Let's say that we start with a small pilot Archive Value proposition. If 200,000 signed up for $10 a month to access a category of archive that would be $20 million a year. This could fund a lot of development!

Then let's think of only 2 million subscribers, less than 10% of the listeners, that is $240 million a year - the Kroc gift."

This does not feel aggressive to me either in numbers of subscribers nor in amounts.

"I am finding that the key is to go for the larger numbers of subscribers and to keep the payment amount as small as possible."

Yes I can see how that keeps your competition at bay and builds sustainability.

"I think that there is a lock-in opportunity if you can get a wide enough and fulfilled base. Especially if they then have an opportunity to connect to each other. So the bigger the system becomes, the more impossible it becomes for some one to try and buy their way in."

Stephen thank you very much. We have only scratched the surface but, this feels right to me.

Stephen had the following comments, clarifications and additions to my version of what we talked about - I also attach a very complete ppt where he provides an astonishing level of detail as to how this might work

January 30, 2007

Ignorance is surely a form of bliss. Before September of 2005 I knew nothing about and I knew no one in public radio. Like all people who are both ignorant and disconnected, I did not care except in some weak and intellectual way about public broadcasting in America. All I knew was that I quite like WGBH TV, which is on our cable feed on PEI, and that I was getting tired of their never ending appeals to my guilt to support it.

But then I got a call from Jackie Nixon and my life changed.

As I traveled the country and met so many people, I fell in love. I fell in love with an idea. The idea is that public radio could become a vital force for the renewal of society and of democracy in America. I fell in love also with a community. I had no idea that such a wonderful and vibrant group of people existed as do in Public radio.

That's my problem. When I knew nothing and no one, I did not care. But now I do. Like any true friend I worry about my friend. Will she make the right decisions. Will she be OK?

I fear that I have become the archetypal "Jewish Mother" often fretting and carping. So I ask your indulgence. My fretting and carping is a product of my own lack of control. You do what you do. I sit in another country and worry.

But while I worry and I fret, I also am seeing signs that give me hope. I wonder if I had been looking in the wrong place for the first moves that would start to unlock the system?

Isaac Asimov gives me a hint.

His premise is that system change is impossible at the centre. In his great book Foundation published in 1951, he tells the story of Hari Seldon who, knowing that the system was in terminal decline, sets out to establish a place for Renewal far away from the centre.

Silly me! Naively I had thought that change would begin in Washington.

But now I wonder. What about the edge of the public radio system?

What could we learn from the edge? What if I was to talk more to those that lived out there? Whom could I call that could shed more light on the central blocks for progress - making a shift in relationships between stations and in speaking directly with the listeners?

So I called Todd Mundt in Des Moines. As he talked to me about Iowa, I could not help but to think of all of you.

Judge for yourself.

Is IPR wrestling with the inter station issues? Is IPR wrestling with how to develop a direct relationship with the listener? Is IPR setting up the local conditions for deepening its relationship with those that can support it? Is IPR's story - your story?

The CallIn 1997 Todd Mundt left Iowa thinking that he had done all that he could there. Iowa Public Radio and TV was doing an excellent job as broadcasters but Todd wondered if there was something more. So he left home to discover more about what could be possible.

But while he was away, there was a stirring back in Des Moines.

People like Cindy Browne and Dan Miller (ED and GM IPTV) could also see that the public system in Iowa had to transcend a simple programming relationship.

They began to wonder if IPR and IPTV could become meaning makers?

Could IPR and IPTV become an active agent in helping Iowans improve their own society?

They began to wonder what might happen to IPR and IPTV, if they could establish this deeper relationship.

The Return and the Plan

So why did you return home Todd?

"I wanted to be part of something that was important. I saw that there was a serious effort underway to create a new kind of relationship with the community. I could see that many other stations were also starting to struggle to find this as well.

There were no guarantees but I felt that we had a good shot. I thought that it would be easier to do it at home with people that I trusted than in a bigger more impersonal system."

"Do you have a game plan that you can share with us?"

"Maybe not a plan but we have an approach. It has two parts. We have to build a strong inter-station platform and we have to build trust. Trust with the listeners and Trust with our staff.

Relationships between the StationsThe foundation for everything had to be the quality of the relationships between the stations in Iowa.

In spite of the fact that all our stations are part of the Iowa system, they were in practice often competing with each other. We had to make a shift from competition to cooperation."

"Sounds like the situation in much of Public Radioland?"

"Yes- It is hard enough inside one state with one owner - so I can see why this is very hard elsewhere. To have a chance of being effective and of being trusted, we had to eliminate the inter-station friction. We had to be one united family. -

If we could do this then we might have a chance of changing our relationship with the listener. So at the moment this where a lot of our energy is going.

At the same time we began to change our relationship with the listener."

So how are you doing this? What are you seeking and how do you intend to get there?

"We started by by listening. We set off with a project to connect to Iowans and to get their opinions.

Over 6 weeks we talked to over 2,000 people. We used interviews, meetings, surveys - every way possible - to get a feel for what Iowans were looking for. This was more than the usual market research, we wanted to get the pulse and we wanted to open up channels that could continue on after this project as an ongoing way of staying connected. We learned a lot. (Here is a snip)

'We’ll have a much more complete report on the Listening Project in a
few weeks and we’ll post it here so you can read it for yourself. But
allow me to list a few conclusions I have about what I heard:

Consolidating public radio in Iowa makes good sense. Doing so will
allow us to operate more efficiently, use your dollars more wisely, and
focus more of our resources on programs for and about Iowa.

We need to invest more in quality news and public affairs
reporting. So many Iowans have told us that newspapers aren’t giving
them enough depth and perspective on Iowa news. You expect us to fill
the gap - our statewide reach makes this possible. Right now, you’re
telling us that our news isn’t that much different than what you’re
finding in the newspapers. So we’re going to have to put more resources
into our news reporting.

You’ve told us that you appreciate our local programs - like The
Talk of Iowa and Midday - but you don’t think the shows are the best
they can be. Just as we need to invest more in news, we need to invest
more in our programs. The investment includes some money, but it’s also
going to be an investment of time and hard work and people. I think
you’re telling us that we need to be rigorous about what we present on
our programs - our hosts need resources so they’re well prepared, our
topics need to be carefully chosen, our guest experts need to be the
best we can find.

We need to be more engaged in our communities. Many participants in
the Listening Project talked about the importance of community, and
they saw some kind of connection between what public radio is doing,
and their efforts to make their own communities a better place to live.
I see an important area of action here for us. Journalism isn’t about
advocating for a particular point of view - that’s called bias, and
it’s not what we’re about. But Iowa Public Radio can make a commitment
to making Iowa a better place to live, and here’s an example of how
that might work: we could bring Iowans together to discuss important
issues among themselves, assemble experts to offer their views, report
in-depth on how other communities in Iowa or around the country are
tackling those issues. See what we’re doing? We’re not advocating, but
we’re providing information and detail that helps Iowans weigh the
options available, consider how others deal with similar issues, and
ultimately decide how to solve community issues. In the end, we’re more
informed citizens, and when we have more information, we make better
decisions.

As I said earlier, we’ll have much more to say about the Listening
Project, and this project is just beginning. We’ll be listening to
everything you have to say to us.'

This is why we have launched the Blog as well. We decided that if IPR was going to have a relationship with people, we had to be real and we had to offer them a real person to get connected too. No one can talk to IPR but they can talk to me."

You have used very personal language - You always say I and not we. You use active verbs and not the passive. This is a personal message from Todd not a memo or a news release.

Here is how you talked about the big change in programming that lead to a firestorm of protest -

"It was a difficult decision. “On Point” has attracted a following in eastern Iowa over the past 2 years.

As we launched the new service, we wanted to create the strongest possible schedule for news and information. The decisions were hard, but we tried to base them on audience data (which is helpful, to a point), what listeners have told us (many positive comments about On Point, but also a number of requests for Diane Rehm), and also experience elsewhere around the country. (Elsewhere, large numbers of public radio listeners like Diane Rehm and are very loyal to the show.)

So there are the reasons, but at the moment you flip the switch, so to speak, it’s never a certainty. We think that, over time, the majority of public radio listeners in Iowa will come to feel that the Diane Rehm Show solidly covers the news, and offers thoughtful analysis.

What happens if we’re wrong? We’ll change. I want to give the show a little time so listeners can get used to Diane, can hear the kinds of topics she covers, the kinds of guests she has on the program, and the kinds of callers. But I promise to be responsive if, over the next six months, we get a groundswell asking for something else."

Not many people in decision making roles use the word "I". They use 'corporate speak'. Not many express doubt at the outset that they may be proved wrong."

"Well I feel that Iowans cannot connect to an institution.

Actually, I don't think that any people can connect with an institution. My bet is that, if I speak for myself and if I hold myself accountable and if I allow people to reach me and that I engage directly with them - then Iowans will accept me for doing my best."

Well then what was it like when you asked for feedback and you got it?

"It was humbling - but everyone could see that a real case was being made not just between me and those that complained but also between listeners and listeners. (Have a look here at 77 comments in one string to see what Todd means by this)

So when I finally decided to go back - as I had indicated I might if I was proved wrong - then it was no surprise. People could follow the discussion. The real point was that they had experienced a democratic decision being made in the full light of day! (Please have a look at the 50 comments in this post - see how the overall relationship has been strengthened) I think that we have passed the first test of Trust."

I see what you mean. Many stations announce a major decision out of the blue and some even change their minds also out of the blue and no one sees any process. Classical - News - Classical?

"Yes - Who feels good about being dictated too? As we go into the 2008 campaign, imagine if, instead of a grueling public process, a party made a back-room decision on the candidate? But I regret that that is how we were brought up to make decisions in public radio."

Why Todd?

"Well I think that we are afraid to appear that we don't know everything.

Maybe it's a sense that we have to be perfect? So we keep all our planning inside the organization and then announce the big decision. Or worse fake it by announcing and then asking for comments.

I am discovering that being in a real conversation is better. Start with your best shot but have some legitimate doubt - try it and see.

As a result, you get good advice and you get real engagement. Isn't that the point? Isn't getting a better decision and becoming truly engaged with the public the essence of the new public media?"

So what is this radical transparency feel like for you Todd? (The link takes you to a discussion about Chris Anderson's ideas that surround this term)

"I have to tell you that it is emotionally painful some days but I think that this is better.

I am not a puppet. People know that I speak for myself. I am easy to find. Anyone in Iowa can tell me directly what they think. I have nothing to hide and I stand in public. So I am feeling better. For I am learning all of this for the first time too.

A big lesson has also been learned. That we can talk about difficult things in public and that it is OK.

This is an essential lesson if we are going to meet our true goal. If Public Media in Iowa can help Iowans come together and safely discuss our greatest problems - where we are divided by ideology, by class and by geography. Then we have to know that we can provide the safe place (I call it Trusted Space) where people can be open. If we can do this, then we can shift gears and indeed become not interesting. Not important but essential to those that we serve - our community. All Iowans.

January 22, 2007

Here are April Fehling and Frank Hamilton. They have quit their day jobs in the Public Radio system to go on a mission.

What called then so powerfully to do that, when they had so little anyway?

They are worried that the insider discourse that we have been holding for the last 12 months about the future of Public Radio risks being trapped by its "Insider" habits. They are concerned that what insiders worry about is too small a picture.

The wonder if listeners know about Station Bypass? Would they care if they did? They wonder if the listeners care about the squabbles that stations have between each other and with the producers? They wonder if listeners care about our own narrow appreciation of Brand? After all many listeners know that that This American Life and Prairie Home Companion are NPR shows! They all know that NPR owns a lot of stations and is a broadcaster! Many know that the BBC is part of Public Radio in the US!

Most listeners know that NPR got a ton of money from the McDonald's family. That is why some are a bit mystified that there are so many ads on the radio. "Why if NPR is so rich, do they have their hand out so often?"

"But this is so confused!" You say. "That is not how it is at all!" That is the point for April and Frank.

They are concerned that, on the one hand, insiders are too busy worrying about internal family matters while that, on the other hand, listeners really know very little about the reality of how public radio works.

The insiders and the listeners live in effect on separate mountains and can only talk to each other by smoke signals. There is no way currently before us to bring the voice of the informed listener into the struggle. They are concerned that we cannot rise to the challenge unless we do.

Their mission then is to find a way of finding ways of first informing the listeners about what is really going on so that we can then engage in a more complete way with them to help us.

They ask - Can we build a bridge of knowledge that can connect us directly so that the insiders and the listeners can become truly one?

They wonder what would be the best way to engage so that we had the full heart and mind of the listener?

They wonder - What if we found the answer to this question?

What would be the result if the 30 million listeners and the people inside public radio truly became a united force? Would we be powerful or not? We might make the NRA look pathetic. Would we not then truly become Public?

I believe that April and Frank are correct and that that have asked THE Question that has the power to give Public radio the power.

I believe that they deserve your attention and your support.

If you want to find out more - please go to this link that describes their mission and that has a short video that tells me more about situation that any document that I have seen or attempted to write.

January 17, 2007

Here Terry Heaton shows us that aggregation is working in the existing 'sphere but that VC backed citizen sites are struggling. Is the issue Trusted Space or Not?

I am really not a “told you so” kind of person, but the news that Backfence
is having difficulty comes as no surprise. For the unenlightened,
Backfence is a series of 13 “citizen journalism” sites in three
metropolitan areas: Washington, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area.
Funded by VC money, the model was touted by some observers as the way
of the future.

Its downfall — if that’s what’s happening — should not be an
indictment of hyperlocal citizens media, because there are plenty of
other sites that are doing well (Baristanet, SunValleyOnline, Buffalo Rising, H2Otown, and one of my favorites, PegasusNews
here in Dallas). It’s a tricky proposition, to say the least, but I
think efforts that don’t do well have difficulty, because they’re
trying too hard to build something that’s already there. Aggregation is
the key, not content creation.

This is why we built Nashville is Talking
for WRKN-TV. It is an aggregator of the existing blogosphere and
doesn’t try to be anything other than that. The community that has
built up around it is pretty amazing, a little society that runs itself
quite nicely and brings loads of benefits to the TV station
along-the-way. WKRN’s plans go beyond what currently exists, and I
think a lot of people are going to be surprised when all is said and
done.

The existing blogosphere in any community has energy and life that
can’t be duplicated by efforts from without. Bloggers write, because
they have something to say. And people who have something to say will
find a way to say it. What I don’t like about some citizen media sites
is how hard they try to create a forum for people via their own model,
reasoning that once the forum is in place, talented people will flock
to it. People who have something to say already have their own forums,
so efforts to duplicate this, I believe, come off as dry and lifeless.

Fred Wilson has a good summary of the “placeblogging” (this is the new term) phenomenon in his blog this week.

Like other observers, I’ve supported Backfence and the people who
were trying to make it work. Nobody has a lock on where all this is
going, and we’ve got to accept that some things will work and others
won’t. Part of that, I think, is deciding what we mean by “works” and
then building accordingly.

Media 2.0 is not Media 1.0, and the more we try to make it so, the quicker we’ll go down in flames.

January 15, 2007

Ever since entering journalism, I have delighted in finding the
hidden story or fact or source that no other reporter had. So I
cultivated sources, did endless research and took every opportunity to
talk with strangers. That’s how I got my very best stories. At
Minnesota Public Radio, we’ve found a way to have those sources and
stories come to us.

Seventeen thousand people, at last count,
have volunteered to share what they know about their communities, their
work and their lives to help us find and tell important stories. Many
have given us leads we might never have found. Our network of public
sources continues to grow (by roughly 1,000 a month) and so does its
contribution to our coverage.

In the past few weeks,
reporters here and at our American Public Media programs in Los Angeles
have used these sources for stories on crime in Minneapolis, obstacles
faced by women entrepreneurs, advances in green architecture, rising
middle-class insecurity, and religion at the office. We also met with
70 people, many of them undocumented workers, for our continuing
coverage of immigration issues.

We call our approach Public
Insight Journalism®, or PIJ, because we seek to tap the knowledge and
insight of those in the public to make our coverage stronger and more
relevant.

This approach appears to fit the rule of the emerging natural alternative:-

Inexpensive tools (In any field) plus web support (Marketing, sales,
Logistics etc) aggregated inside a Trusted Space with millions of participants acting as both
consumers and suppliers = a much better system for all.

So after the Tube bombing there were 7,000 emails and pictures
coming over the transom into the news room at the BBC. After the Fuel
Depot explosion there were 25,000 by noon! There was a staff of 7 who
were overwhelmed by this.

The infinite scale and the infinite Noise created by having an open
door was becoming apparent to the Innocents who then asked - how much
will this cost to keep this type of interaction going? Can we in
reality sift through all the noise to find the diamonds? Is this really
participation? How could we find the quality as the noise builds?

These were the questions that Robin's team asked when they asked for
permission to try a different track. By asking this type of question -
they got the green light. They had exposed the unsustainable nature of
and open door and no filters in a world where content was going to
reach for infinite.

So what are they doing? They are creating a Space where they will have a Host.